


Ashes

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Homophobia, M/M, Unrequited Love, section leader!eren, techie!jean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:39:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3618483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next day he went through all of the pictures they had ever taken together and burned them over the bathtub with his lighter. Thought it should be a tradition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes

When they’d first met, Jean was absolutely certain he’d make a fool of himself. It was an incredibly well-kept secret that he had a painful crush on none other than Eren Jager, section leader of the marching band trumpets, and it was so well-kept that sometimes Jean forgot it himself. He was always reminded, however, when the shorter boy threw a toothy grin his way, or winked at him from somewhere on the football field with a trumpet in his hands, or even when they just sat in each other’s presence in Jean’s car, listening to Uptown Funk after a performance. But he was also reminded that the love was unrequited, because in the corner of his eye, next to him on the bleachers, waiting somewhere at home, was Eren’s wonderously beautiful girlfriend Mikasa Ackerman.

On that day where they officially met, Jean was loafing around in the tech room backstage, minutes before Maria High School was to perform the musical _Chicago_ , and Eren was talking sweetly with Mikasa about something or other. Then the drama students were being rallied up for the first act, and the two shared a kiss before rushing away from each other. In his haste, Eren failed to notice his golden locket falling to the ground (the thing was so old it probably unlatched itself four times a day) and opening itself to spill a pile of gray onto the floor. Jean left the tech room only to pick up the locket in hopes of returning it to the boy, and throughout all of the acts he missed a cue or two in his distraction.

When the play was over and Jean was finally permitted to leave the tech room, he made a beeline for the band room--through swarms of people in the crowded auditorium, across the courtyard speckled with parents, and into the deserted arts building. There was a fast-paced song blaring from one of the doors, with lots of brass and percussion, and Jean steeled his thoughts outside of the door waiting to return Eren’s most prized possession. He was so lost in his world of nervous emotions that he jumped probably ten feet in the air when the band room’s door swung open quicker than a beat of a hummingbird’s wings, and a black instrument case was hurled into the opposite wall.

“I swear, I’ll quit!” Eren had yelled, kicking the door closed again.

There was an uproar inside, and a commanding voice ringing all above it, though not loud enough to drown out the noise of furious drum beats.

Jean was practically having a heart attack from his position on the wall, staring at Eren with wide eyes as the shorter boy ran a hand through his dark messy hair. After a moment or two of somewhat heavy breathing, he calmed down enough to check and see if his trumpet still played correctly (it was a wonder he was even still holding it at all). Then he looked over his instrument case, clicking his tongue at the obvious damage, muttering about how he’d need to get a new one soon.

“Excuse me?”

Eren had turned at the sound of Jean’s voice, eyeing him up and down quickly before gathering up his case in the hand that didn’t hold his actual trumpet. His thick eyebrows were drawn down, clearly in anger and annoyance.

“I, uh, came here to return something of yours,” Jean said quickly, digging the golden locket out of his pants pocket. He held it out to Eren, whose countenance had calmed considerably. “You dropped it backstage. Maybe change the latch?”

“Everyone’s been nagging me all year about it, but thanks. You’ve got no idea how important this thing is to me.” Eren balanced his trumpet precariously on top of his case, and opened the locket after taking it from Jean’s hand. Then he sucked in a huge breath, fingers twitching, and he looked at Jean with ill-concealed anxiety. “Oh, Lord. Did you see anything fall out of this? Can you take me to where you found it?”

And that’s how they ended up battling their way through crowds of people again, pushing and shoving and sometimes yelling, ignoring anyone calling after them in order to get to tech support and scoop up a pile of ashes into Eren’s locket. Jean was suspended from his technical duties within the drama class, and Eren was stripped of his section leader status as a result of his behavior that night, but at least they walked home together and started a friendship.

Jean supposed it wasn’t such a bad way to meet, if it led to the relationship they had now. You would rarely see one without the other, be it through quarrelling or studying or simply sitting together, and the only thing more he would ever request of it was that Eren loved him at least half as much as he loved Mikasa. It was difficult, and it was heartbreaking, but Jean would rather settle for a friendship than nothing at all.

That was sophomore year. Now they were sitting together in Jean’s car, seniors, listening to some obscure, lighthearted song from his phone, and Eren looked just about ready to die. A particularly rough performance had just taken place at one of Maria High’s infamously terrible football games (once again, the Scouts had lost to the Titans of Sina High School), in which Eren had played probably twelve lightning fast songs of incredible volume, most from the uncomfortable bleachers, with a team of slightly incompetent marching band players. Then he had to suffer the wrath of his best friend Armin Arlert, who was unexpectedly furiously serious when it came to sports, when he accidentally poked Eren in the eye with his clarinet. On the side, Jean was battered throughout the whole game by a bratty, snotty child, and had gotten smacked in the head with a drumstick, a mistake by sitting too close to the percussion section in the bleachers. Needless to say, they were a hot fucking messes, minus the hot and triple the mess.

They could both use a little pick-me-up, honestly.

Jean pulled into his driveway and reached over the console to the glove box, where he retrieved a cigarette pack. Eren caught his wrist and gave him a sharp look.

“You have an inhaler for a goddamn reason.”

The lanky boy merely rolled his eyes and opened up the pack, revealing to Eren that it was filled with M&Ms. He poured some into his own hand before giving the whole thing to the other boy.

“I’m pretty stupid,” Jean said, “but I’m not _that_ stupid. It’s just some thing my mom did a long time ago to look cool to her friends, even though she never really smoked. Thought it should be a tradition.”

Eren threw him one of his trademark toothy grins as he dumped the M&Ms into his mouth all in one go. Then he shoved open the car door, which always liked to try and trap people inside, and tugged his new trumpet case out into the chilly open air. Jean shuddered as he left the car and locked it, bare arms rudely bitten by the winter wind, suddenly envious of Eren’s long-sleeved uniform. He should join the marching band, play the flute, maybe.

“These M&Ms taste like shit,” Eren grumbled around his full mouth as Jean unlocked the door to his house.

He snorted in response because it was the simple truth, the vague taste of cigarettes creeping across his tongue, and they both entered the quiet house with the sort of gracefulness only a drugged rhinoceros could really compare to. Eren flopped into a heap onto the couch, finishing up his awful M&Ms and sniffling loudly, and from his position in the kitchen Jean could see that he was reaching for a box of tissues.

He clicked his tongue. “You got a cold?” he asked.

“Maybe.” Eren blew his nose, which sounded close enough to the instrument he played that he could probably make a living off of the noise. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s pretty cold out there, and our uniforms only keep us warm when we don’t need to be.”

Jean sighed long and hard, and turned to the cabinet beside the refrigerator to rifle through its contents. There were two packs of food dye, a plethora of sprinkles, bags of sugar and flour higher up, some tuna cases, and all too many soup cans. He retrieved them one after the other--Eren wasn’t fond of Chef Boyardee, which was ninety percent of the collection, and _nobody_ liked cream of mushroom, so he continued his search further back until he pulled out a naked can. He turned it all around, but he couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be. “How does an unlabeled can of soup sound?”

“Stellar,” Eren replied, blowing his nose again. What an obnoxious sound. “Heard it works wonders if you want to die.”

The lanky boy merely chuckled and started cooking up the soup as best he could. It was around the same size as some Campbell’s Chunky soups in the cabinet, so he read the instructions for microwave cooking off of those, but he really couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t cream of mushroom, so that’s all that mattered. Soon enough, though, there was a beeping in the kitchen, Eren had warm soup in his hands, and he was saying, “Everything goes to my dog,” as he began to eat. Nothing bad happened an hour later except for more nose blowing, so they assumed all was right in the world and that they should probably never do that again lest they wished to get food poisoning or something equally horrific.

For a while they sat there on the couch in close proximity, watching an episode of Hannibal they’d already seen, and Jean was trying his hardest not to touch Eren in any way that would seem anything but platonic. There was a moment where Eren complained about wanted to lay down, and eventually he just laid his body across Jean’s legs, and Jean thought he’d surely die of combustion due to the heat in his face. Eventually they got bored enough that they went into Jean’s room and pilfered the boxes hidden away in his closet from when he first moved to Shiganshina fourteen years ago, and started playing with a gross of plastic dinosaurs until Eren said that as much as he loved being six years old, he really needed to get going.

Also, Mikasa was outside honking her Volkswagen Jetta’s horn.

Jean watched Eren run down the front lawn and run into Mikasa’s arms, greeting her with a grin and a kiss. He waved, and they both yelled their goodbyes, and as the Jetta sped down the road, he heaved a dejected sigh. With nothing else but the frigid wind to witness it, he dragged a hand down his face and slunk back inside, shutting the door with a thump and the click of a lock.

* * *

 

“I know you’re in love with Eren.”

The statement was so soft that Jean thought he hadn’t heard it, but as he turned to Mikasa he saw that she was staring back at him, eyes filled with an awful pity that he didn’t want. They were walking pretty slowly before, but now they were practically moving like molasses. Time seemed to give up its duties and whir almost to a stop.

“I thought you’d like to know,” Mikasa continued, “he’s not exactly fond of... _that kind_ of attention. It’d be best if you put your interest towards someone else, I think.”

Up ahead, Eren was yelling, “Come on, you guys! Move any slower and you’d be going backwards!” with his performance tickets waving all over the place in his hand. His voice was somewhat distorted due to his stuffy nose.

Jean wished he could be as excited tonight’s show as Eren was, but with this new development in his life he wasn’t entirely sure if he was going to be remotely happy for a week, or even a month. He swallowed hard with a shudder that, for once, wasn’t because of the freezing air. This time he had a jacket, colored a mustard yellow, and it reflected the sick flimsiness of his soul.

Mikasa put her hand on Jean’s back, pushing him forward. “Come on,” she whispered. “You’re on tech support today. Marco called out sick.”

They trudged along through the auditorium, which was disgustingly overrun by parents with blurry faces and students with bland features, as most people they knew were somewhere backstage getting ready for their performance of _Into the Woods_. The three parted ways; Eren into the seats beside Armin and some band friends, Mikasa into the dressing room, and Jean to the tech room. The musical began soon enough, all seats taken and all performers present, and during Act One, Scene Four, Jean took a moment to bring out his phone and send a message to Eren’s best friend.

_**[ME]: has mikasa told you anything lately** _

_**[LEGOUT]: Like what?** _

_**[ME]: uh.** _

_**[ME]: like things regarding me and eren i guess** _

_**[LEGOUT]: Oh.** _

_**[LEGOUT]: I don’t really know if this is going to be a huge shocker, but** _

_**[LEGOUT]: Yes.** _

_**[LEGOUT]: And all I can say is that I’m really sorry.** _

_**[ME]: goddamnit** _

_**[LEGOUT]: I know, it sucks being the homosexual friend of a homophobic person. Especially if you like said person.** _

_**[ME]: yyyyeah** _

_**[ME]: wait youre gay** _

_**[LEGOUT]: I thought that was obvious, yeah** _

_**[LEGOUT]: We’re in a similar enough situation, too. I guess.** _

_**[ME]: with who though** _

_**[LEGOUT]: I think it’d be better for both of us if I didn’t say.** _

_**[ME]: oh** _

_**[ME]: oh wow um. okay** _

_**[LEGOUT]: Yeah. I understand. Sorry.** _

Jean leaned far back in his chair, hands on his temples with his breath stolen by shock and discontent. How fucking stupid his life had become in the span of one night, two people loving those who would never love them back. He blinked a few times, swallowed some, and finally decided to hightail it right out of tech support. Those backstage were whisper-screeching after him, and he was certain that he’d receive some sort of punishment later, but he believed a show could still go on without music and effects if its actors were truly determined.

He debated his next move as he found himself beside his car in Maria High’s parking lot, choosing between driving home or just _out_ to clear his mind for half a goddamn minute, but there was a voice like the one song that really tugged at your feelings, and Eren was running up to him in the blackness of Friday night.

Eren slowed to a walk just beside the car. If Jean had run as far as he had, he’d probably be reaching for his inhaler.

“I think we need to talk,” the shorter boy said. Any other time it would have sounded silly, what with his stuffy nose messing up his voice, but this was a very serious matter.

Jean knew what was coming. “Just get it over with,” he spat, turned half away and gripping the handle of his car so tightly his knuckles were becoming discolored. “No use in sugarcoating it if it’s too bitter to begin with.”

“My sincere apologies.” Eren was most definitely not sincere. In fact, he seemed about ready to recoil in disgust if Jean twitched a finger in his general direction. “I took Armin’s phone because I thought he was talking to Mikasa, and I read all the stuff you said. I can’t honestly say I’m too surprised on his part, but I thought...I thought you were _normal_ , Jean.” He ran his hands up and down his arms, but whether it was from the cold or from discomfort no one could be sure. “I’m sorry, but all I can really do is hope you two go to church or something. Maybe it’ll help...that.”

It was then that Jean wanted to smash his head into the door’s window until cracks webbed across it and shattered into his brain. Eren’s foster family was so religious they could probably be considered a church already. How could he forget? Eren’s locket and a fucking cross on it, after all, and he actually prayed during the moment of silence. What really irked Jean, though, was the fact he couldn’t even bring himself to say homosexual or, at the very least, gay.

“Why are you treating homosexuality like it’s cancer?” growled Jean, throwing Eren a sidelong glare. How strange. He’d loved that same face just yesterday. Now he wasn’t so sure. “Going to church won’t help Armin, and it certainly won’t help me, because there’s nothing to help! We aren’t sick. We don’t need _curing_. What’s so bad about appreciating a person that just so happens to have a dick?”

Eren truly did recoil. “It’s unnatural and uncomfortable,” he muttered in response. Then he sighed angrily. “I’m not arguing with you on something like this! Just--leave me alone. Don’t talk to me anymore.”

The shorter boy turned on his heel and walked away so briskly the wind around him would probably be jealous. Jean was left there, alone and in the cold, stripped of the light of his life, and he blinked back tears as they threatened to crawl down his cheeks. He climbed into his car mechanically, brain empty, soul bare, and the silence was so loud from his trip from Maria High to his house that he felt like his ears would be ringing with it later on. Pulling up into his driveway and stepping out into the cold, he looked to the stars and whispered a curse to whatever higher power was up there, because he would never acknowledge a God who never acknowledged him.

Try as they might, his family couldn’t get much more than a, “Hello,” out of Jean as he slunk away to his room. He closed the door behind him with a thump and a click of the lock, trudging up to his bed and laying on top of the well-made blankets.

That bed sucked him in and a tear crept its way down his face.

Another tear, and another, until they were coming so quickly that Jean didn’t even know how to help himself. A sob escaped his throat and it was then that he knew he’d truly been lost. He cried until his eyes stung, until he had no more tears to cry, and when he finally wiped his face dry he looked at his nightstand. A picture of Eren and himself sat there, right after Eren had just gotten back his position as section leader of the trumpets, and they were both smiling wolfishly, delirious in their excitement.

Jean took the shiny paper of a autumn day’s memory out of its frame and dug around the drawer under it for a lighter. He took both objects into the bathroom across the hall, held them both over the bathtub, and flickered on the lighter just below the picture. The flame caught quickly, and the heat was intense, but he didn’t drop the thing until it had all burned up into gray on the white porcelain.

He slept in the bathtub that night with the ashes of an abandoned future.

**Author's Note:**

> i was listening to raw and awake by chris garneau and looking for short story prompts, and then this was born. went on http://awesomewritingprompts.tumblr.com/ for the prompts, which were #636 and #627, although i changed the jazz band to a marching band obviously. really fun to write, although this was mostly to apologize for boys on mute because i ignored it and then shut it down. :/ oops


End file.
